Francis Hayley Bell (1877 - 1944)

Born 1877 in Shanghai, China

Ancestors

Husband of Agnes Ellen (MacGowan) Hayley Bell — married 12 Apr 1910 in Amoy, China

Descendants

Died 20 Apr 1944 at about age 67 in Chelsea, London, England

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Biography

Francis Hayley Bell was born in Shanghai in 1877, the youngest of eight children of a wealthy English merchant, Frederick Hayley Bell. Francis generally wrote his family name as Hayley Bell, rather than Bell, and his children took this name. In some documents it appears as Hayley-Bell.

Hayley Bell was sent to school in England at the age of seven. He returned to China at the age of 15 and worked around the country, eventually joining the Imperial Maritime Customs in 1896. He went to South Africa in 1905, where he joined the Natal Carbeeners as a trooper and may have seen service in the Natal Uprising in Zululand in 1906. Over the following years, he explored parts of Africa and Russia, before returning to China. He became fluent in several Chinese dialects. In 1910, while studying the Fukien dialect in Amoy, he married Agnes MacGowan, the daughter of missionaries.

He served in the Queen's Royal Regiment in World War I, where he was seriously wounded while serving with the 10th Battalion near Passchendaele, and again while commanding the same battalion on the Somme. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and received the DSO. After leaving the service at the rank of Lt.-Colonel, he returned to China, where he served in the Imperial Maritime Customs in Macao. After a short stay in England, he moved to Hong Kong, where he was Customs Commissioner for Kowloon from 1925-1928. In 1926, during the Hong-Kong-Canton Strike, he was attacked on the Bund in Canton and beaten so severely on the head that he barely survived. At the end of 1930, he was appointed Customs Commissioner in Tianjin (then known as Tientsin). On June 16, 1931, agents of Marshall Yan Xishan forced him out of office and replaced him with B. Lennox Simpson (who was shot four months later).

After a short time in England, Hayley Bell went to Shanghai as a representative of a company selling military supplies. This was not a success, and a few years later he was back in England, writing stories for magazines to eke out a living. He returned to China via Russia, hoping to serve with Chiang Kai-Shek, but was back in England, penniless, a few years later. In 1936, he was appointed Defence Security Officer in Singapore. He was sacked in 1939, ostensibly for hunting down and executing Japanese spies and other 'unorthodox methods', but more likely for publicly criticizing the colonial administration about their failure to prepare a proper defense against Japanese invasion. "No one but a fool," the Governor told him, "would suggest that the Japs want to attack Singapore."

Back in England, unable to find regular work, he supported himself by writing. He died in March 1944 and his ashes were scattered at sea by his son, Dennis.

"A strange, complex man, spiritually proud, with the heart of a lion; sometimes too strong, and in his early years viewed with benevolent intolerance or amusement by many; though the friends he had, he kept always." [Hayley Bell, Mary. What Shall We Do Tomorrow? J. B. Lippincott Company: Philadelphia and New York, 1969, p.16]

Sources

• "England and Wales Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8), 1588-1977," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FQ2T-R9R : accessed 7 November 2015), Francis Hayley Bell, 12 Apr 1910, Marriage; citing p. 19, Shanghai, China, record group RG33, Public Record Office, London.
• "England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVCC-HSWQ : accessed 10 December 2015), Francis H Bell, 1944; from "England & Wales Deaths, 1837-2006," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing Death, Chelsea, London, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.
• The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985, Deaths : 21/4/1944.
• Hayley Bell, Mary. What Shall We Do Tomorrow? J. B. Lippincott Company: Philadelphia and New York, 1969.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Hayley_Bell
• http://www.mocavo.com/Whos-Who-Men-and-Women-of-the-Time-1935/107381/283
• http://www.ww1infantrycos.co.uk/bell.html